Conveying & accumulation

Self-manufacture of bottles brings savings

In-house blow molding of 500-mL PET bottles is expanding in a big way at Aberfoyle Springs. Two blow-molding machines are in, and a third is on the way.

January 31, 2000

Beverage: Page 349

Additives, coatings & inks

FDA fires starter's gun on 'fast track'

Agency offers details of new 120-day approval program usable for most—but not all—food-contact substrate materials.

January 31, 2000

Feeding/inserting/unscrambling

Packaging for kids at Kellogg and Dannon

When these two food processing powerhouses used existing brands as launch pads for kid-oriented new products, they were highly selective about their choice of containers.

January 31, 2000

Secondary Packaging

Retorted food pouches ready for market push

Knauss and Esskay introduce foods in retorted pouches without foil for retail. StarKist Seafood sells a foil-based pouch of tuna to foodservice accounts. Will others follow suit?

January 31, 2000

Sustainability

Mystery of the missing PMNs

The FDA and the pharmaceutical industry are both scratching their figurative heads over packaging suppliers’ apparent hesitancy to use the agency’s new 120-day packaging approval program.

December 31, 1999

Feeding/inserting/unscrambling

Vac-U-Max: Powder conveying system

Vac-U-Max (Belleville, NJ) introduces the Model PB pneumatic conveying system for dry powders. Through a 48”-L wand and vacuum hoses, product is vacuumed from drums into feeders equipped with a discharge spout positioned above either a primary package or a tank on a filling machine.

December 31, 1999

Dairy

Pushing meals to market

Breakaway Foods™ is touting its new line of paperboard cylinder-packed IncrEdibles™ portable meals as “a revolutionary new way for consumers to enjoy their favorite foods, and the ultimate meal for people on the go.” IncrEdibles are microwaveable meals packaged in a printed, spiral-wound paperboard cylinder that becomes a “self-server,” according to the company, when consumers push up a plastic stick that’s inserted into the cylinder’s bottom.

December 31, 1999

Spirits/liquors

Robotics is hot

Third-quarter statistics show that the North American robotics industry is having its best year ever, says the Robotics Industries Assn. (Ann Arbor, MI).

December 31, 1999

Beverage

PEF now managed by PMMI

“To more efficiently raise and distribute funds for worthy university packaging programs,” is one reason cited by Jim Scott, president of the Packaging Education Forum, as the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute assumes management of PEF.

December 31, 1999

Beverage

Which vodka are you?

Vodka bottle decoration combines acid etching and ACL printing.

December 31, 1999

Controls & Machine Components

NesQuik and Gatorade shine at DrinkPak '99

Aseptic filling of Nestle U.S.A.'s NesQuik and Quaker Oats' Gatorade were two of the hot topics on the agenda at this December conference.

December 31, 1999

Converting equipment

Competition 'tags' winning labels

This year’s Tag and Label Awards Competition honors pressure-sensitive labels used for new age drinks, wine and vitamins.

December 31, 1999

Feeding/inserting/unscrambling

Case packer provides Bacardi with rum on the run

A new case packer helps Bacardi Bottling package 10-count cartons of 50-mL rum miniatures into corrugated shippers.

December 31, 1999